Those Early Mornings

February 19, 2015

For the fifth time in two weeks the volume on my phone was turned so low that I didn’t hear my alarm and slept past my 5:25AM wake up call to go to my barre class. I awoke to a grayishly lit sky, and knew immediately I had once again slept through my alarm as the sky is pitch-black at 5:25AM.

“This f&*(**(&)(&&**((( piece of shit is so (&*&*(^*(&^!!!!” And so on.

Expletives continued to explode from my mouth as I lunged for my cell phone and threw it on the ground in a sleepy rage. I laid back down in bed, so upset with myself that not only had I missed my barre class ($15 each), but I missed my opportunity to exercise, and heaven forbid if I don’t exercise almost every day. I continued to curse at myself and finally sat up on the side of the bed. I couldn’t help myself when the tears started to fall. It wasn’t even 6:20AM.

I am a person who is dictated by rules. I have rules for when I go to bed to get enough sleep, rules for how I arrange things on a bookshelf to be stylish, rules for when I have to get to work to be a good employee, rules for how my hair must look to be pretty, rules for how much I am supposed to exercise to be healthy, rules for how many breaths to take to relieve my anxiety, rules for the jokes I make on this blog so as to make people laugh but not offend anyone. It’s fucking exhausting.

I wrote a blog post last year about how I wanted to stop making so many lists. As I write this I’m looking at the list of things I need to do at work tomorrow morning in addition to the list of things I want to accomplish over the weekend. I also have another mental list of errands to run on Saturday. We see how well that resolution worked out.

I am telling you this sob story for two reasons: 1) because I don’t ever want to seem like my life is perfect or that I know anything about anything and 2) it feels nice to get it out.

I also want to say that I am going to change, but I am an inherently type-A person to the bone, so I’m not sure I can completely change. But I am determined to tweak. At least a little.

I put more pressure on myself to be perfect than anyone else does. I am not influenced by super perfect models that have unimaginable bodies. I don’t see other businesswomen busting ass and feel pressured to measure up. Sure I’d like to be like all of these people, but this pressure is different because it comes from within. This pressure is self-inflicted in some sort of sick masochistic way. Ah yes — I am a perfectionist. And it’s fucking exhausting. And just saying it’s exhausting makes me feel better. So I’ll say it again.

IT’S FUCKING EXHAUSTING!

I’m feeling better already.

An aside: I normally don’t say the f word on SST because my parents read and my mother in law reads and my aunt reads and my mom’s friends read and my mom does not want me saying the f word on the internet, but it does provide a certain amount of impact and power that other words do not carry, so for this one post Mom please forgive me. I probably won’t do it again.

But here’s the thing that happened once I started to embarrassingly cry on the side of my bed at 6:15 in the morning — my dear Wilson got up, put his arm around me, and told me that everything was ok. His breath wreaked of sleep and his face was a bit greasy, but the warmth of his embrace was enough to warm a thousand hearts. He gently rubbed my shoulders and told me it was ok and not to worry. Wilson is one of the kindest, most empathetic people alive, and you’re lucky if you have him as a friend. I’m even luckier to have him as my husband.

And you know what, it was ok. The world did not stop spinning because I did not get up at 5:25AM like some idiotic exercise-crazed freak. War and famine did not break out because I wasn’t at work at my goal 7:55AM start time. Lives were not lost because I was a bit hurried that morning as I got ready. Everything was fine, everything was good, everything was ok.

So here’s my life tweak — everything is ok. Not everything is going to be ok or everything will be ok, everything is ok right in this moment, right this second. If your heart is still beating and your eyes are still seeing and your fingers are still touching, everything is ok.

These are deeply personal thoughts I’m bearing right now, but for some reason when I drain my emotions out on this blog it makes me feel lighter and therefore more sarcastic and funny moving forward. So here’s hoping I’ll be better tomorrow.

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5 Comments

I love this post. You are such a wonderful person ABJ and an inspiration, even with your strict rules and lists (you know I love them too!). Hope you are feeling better today and miss you! Tell Wilson I said what’s up! 🙂 🙂

Anna – so many people feel like this, including me. I needed to read someone else out there feels like I do too hah! You are awesome to share this – thank you. Wine and good husbands make everything better for sure! I should go to bed now so i don’t sleep through my alarm again ek! Xo to you and Wilson!